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Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Hi all,

I have been following the sitting hall thread as much as I can, but I must confess that the advantages and disadvantages of each one elude me. Can someone with a more technical brain explain what we'd be voting for/against? I will also try each for myself, although when I tried mebeam today it just froze so that may already push me in the direction of the alternative. I'd also suggest that we keep this discussion open for longer than a week, but that's just me.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

I'm in for ooVoo with MeBeam backup.

Dosho -- I'm not technically inclined, but with ooVoo the video quality is better and more reliable. You can see names of the people in the Hall above their video as well. The audio is a lot less laggy, which is a problem if you want to use the Meeting Hall through MeBeam.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

This said both are and would still be online, available via the sitting hall menu link up to the right /me points to his screen.

Hi Jundo, oovoo seats 6, small number i know and no chat function in the embedded web version, but it does so clearly with out a host is configurable and can does have names...so no need to say anything at all *(like hi from Shohei) . mebeam seats more, has chat but has poor quality when more than a few, and is a bit flaky, no name so you do need that chat option - this is a plus for me though i dig a chat function.

So The idea is for sitting in the hall daily using the schedule it would be (just based on above responses) oovoo. with mebeam still accessible for times like Jukai, for example, when seeing lots of folks is needed and quality etc is not a concern. Though the sitting hall is just sitting, when there are a few folks together its nice to have it work and be able to see a face. I already have made the oovoo page and linked to it off the Zen hall page. So making one to be the first one accessed over the other is very easy, Just a simple change of one character in the name of both pages (great if one goes down or out of business or something of that sort). Right now its still Mebeam is the "landing page" (zen-hall.php), you click a link to load Oovoo(zen-hall2.php). Both pages have links to each other so moving one to the front over the other is really the only thing changes.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

just one addition, shohei, in response to jundo's question -- while working on a mebeam problem, i came across a post on the developer, ashod's, blog -- in it, he acknowledged that at some point in the last year he changed mebeam to a 6 person limit, due to problems they were having with, i think, bandwidth -- i am fairly certain of this, as i tested it by opening 6 windows at once -- i couldn't open a seventh

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

I guess my vote would go to ooVoo simply because of the much better video quality, but then again who needs video quality? It seems a silly point to make a decision on... Sit with good video, bad video, no video, thumbnail video, crashing video, frozen video...

I do like ooVoo's potential as a place to chit-chat about stuff, though I know that is not the intent of the Zen Hall in the first place. A few of us had a nice conversation last week after sitting together there. I don't think it would work for the (formerly known as) Tea Party because of of the user limit, but I appreciated the informal, impromptu conversation. And I don't see that as necessarily harming those who just want to sit, as there are microphone and speaker muting options placed pretty obviously on the user interface.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Hi everyone!
I must say I don't use the Zen Hall very much (bad Jinyu! :evil: ), but seriously, when I tried during zazenkai, I never can reach Mebeam, and I tried oovoo 5 minutes ago and I had no problems at all...
So I'll vote as most of us... oovoo and mebeam as backup...

gassho,
Jinyu
ps: I'll definitely buy a new camera, my "old" one is broken (3 month after I bought it!)
pps: First, Thanks to Roky and Shohei to reminds us of this wonderful tool we have. To say the truth, I don't think I'll use it a lot out of the zazenkai periods so maybe it is normal that folks using it in a regular basis decide more than the others, like myself.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Hi all,

A couple people mentioned having had a conversation in the ooVoo zen hall, which I think is apporpriate for trying something out. But I'd vote to keep the zen hall, on either platform, a silent space and to retire to the other meeting hall for chat...once we decide that is. For now, everything's beta.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Hello friends,

This morning, I fiddled around with both; once I got past the initial surprise of the programs actually working for me (a rare occurrence, to be sure), I took a peek around; I would like to cast my vote for an oovoo meeting hall and a mebeam sitting hall. This way, there is greater clarity in the meeting hall, but you can put more people in the sitting hall.

However, I am not a technology "have," and don't know what kind of issues there are behind the scenes. I am sure that whatever happens, the sangha will live on and thrive :-)

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Originally Posted by roky

just one addition, shohei, in response to jundo's question -- while working on a mebeam problem, i came across a post on the developer, ashod's, blog -- in it, he acknowledged that at some point in the last year he changed mebeam to a 6 person limit, due to problems they were having with, i think, bandwidth -- i am fairly certain of this, as i tested it by opening 6 windows at once -- i couldn't open a seventh

Ahh! makes sense. Thank you for checking Roky! Well ill start making the switcheroo to the Zen hall and the meeting hall, too. I agree Dosho, Zen hall is for silence sitting baring the life interruptions and testing and so the meeting hall will be also be going oovoo thanks to Don!

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Originally Posted by Shohei

Originally Posted by roky

just one addition, shohei, in response to jundo's question -- while working on a mebeam problem, i came across a post on the developer, ashod's, blog -- in it, he acknowledged that at some point in the last year he changed mebeam to a 6 person limit, due to problems they were having with, i think, bandwidth -- i am fairly certain of this, as i tested it by opening 6 windows at once -- i couldn't open a seventh

Ahh! makes sense. Thank you for checking Roky! Well ill start making the switcheroo to the Zen hall and the meeting hall, too. I agree Dosho, Zen hall is for silence sitting baring the life interruptions and testing and so the meeting hall will be also be going oovoo thanks to Don!

Gassho
Shohei

Yes, good work on finding out the limit roky...guess that pretty much makes it official since I don't see any tangible advantage of mebeam now. But if I am missing something...please correct me! And really we're voting on which platform gets the "official" link since neither are going away, right? Is there a way to redirect folks to the mebeam room if the ooVoo rooms are closed/full? I saw that you put a link for the reverse case Shohei which was a great idea.

Maybe mebeam will just be for folks in the know (secret hiding place!). I'll probably end up using mebeam since I'm the one who likes using an old computer far after the shine has come off.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Another question:

If, once in awhile, there happen to be more than 6 folks who show up, is it possible in oovoo to open more than one conference room at once on one account? I mean, the two conference rooms cannot see each other, but the people in room 1 can see and sit with the people in room 1 ... the people in room 2 can see and sit with the folks in room 2 ... the people in room 3 with room 3 ...

I ask as that is what we have done with Mebeam sometimes, such as during our annual Jukai ceremony.

Re: Cast your vote here for a sitting hall(mebeam or oovoo)

Originally Posted by Jundo

Another question:

If, once in awhile, there happen to be more than 6 folks who show up, is it possible in oovoo to open more than one conference room at once on one account? I mean, the two conference rooms cannot see each other, but the people in room 1 can see and sit with the people in room 1 ... the people in room 2 can see and sit with the folks in room 2 ... the people in room 3 with room 3 ...

I ask as that is what we have done with Mebeam sometimes, such as during our annual Jukai ceremony.

Gassho, J

Hi Jundo,
Short answer yes,
long answer yes, we have 2 accounts one for the sitting/zen hall and one for the meeting hall. So there is 12 folks right there. if extra room is needed its on the same a count it costs (i say with out much digging) however in a special circumstance its not too much labour to add more rooms. (either by taking the plunge on my account and adding another room giving 18. If thats not enough we can get more again!